I’m very happy to share that my manuscript Mother Tongue was selected as a finalist in the 2027 spring chapbook contest by Quillkeeper Press. This collection means a lot to me, so it was especially moving to receive this response from the judges: We loved the way Mother Tongue explores the stories, silences, and memories passed from one generation to the next. Through language, family heirlooms, familiar songs, and everyday gestures, these poems reveal how deeply our histories shape us, even when words fail. We were expecially moved by how you hold space for grief while illuminating the quiet, enduring ways love and memory live on in those who come after.

I’ve been thinking lately about the moments we flash back to. Things that seemed completely ordinary when they happened, but somehow gathered weight afterwards. I wrote about two moments like that this week — coincidentally, both connected to public transport. Red Line We were catching the red line to my parents’ place. I dropped my water bottle on the escalator down. You turned, bent to catch it, then closed the distance between us in three long strides. Every day when I pass the barriers of that station on my way to work, I see you coming back toward me.

We’ve been renovating our apartment lately, so I’ve spent a lot of time looking at bare walls, paint cans and marks where things used to hang. I think that’s what started these poems. I kept thinking about how rooms can hold traces of what was there before, even when everything has been stripped away. These three poems all came from that in one way or another. Photo by Phát Trương on Pexels.com Retrace I draw in every second breath,hold it,count to four,pressing my fist to my ribs.

October has a way of bringing things back. Poetic Reveries has a monthly prompt challenge on Instagram that I enjoy being a part of. These are the two poems I wrote for October. Photo by Patrick on Pexels.com Where Only Echoes Live I am my own haunting,turning corners in forgotten rooms.My mind runs in loops,travelling back. I look through glass windowsfogged by my breath, knocking, pressingmy lips to the surfacewhere no sound is heardand only echoes live.

Photo by Gera Cejas on Pexels.com A friend reached out to me the other day and told me he’d been touched by one of my poems after hearing my mother read it at a dinner party. I usually write in English, but I’d also made a Swedish version of this poem and framed it as a birthday gift for my sister. So today I thought I’d share both versions here. The English version, “Don’t Ask Me What’s Gone,” was first published in Still Here Magazine and is also included in my poetry collection…

Photo by Talha Resitoglu on Pexels.com September is a transitional period. Summer is gone and we’re stepping into autumn. This changing of the seasons is symbolic also in our lives, in letting go of what we no longer need. I wanted to share with you two poems that I wrote for Poetic Reveries September prompt challenge. The Grief I Never Named The grief I never namedis seeping through me,sticking strands of hairto my scalp,running down my spine,dripping from my fingertips,landing in the mud. I tried to seek shelter…

Stuck Between Comparison and Reality

Clouds Cover & Peace Discovers

I think about how often I knew something was ending before I admitted it. Not because of a fight — because of a walk. Because of how someone held their body while they moved through a place with me. The world was doing what it always does — wind, heat, incline, distance. While something between us quietly shifted its weight. I often write relationships through the environment because it lets emotion show itself without being named. A gaze that won’t turn toward the ocean. A back that stays a few steps ahead.

Cold can kill, can do violence without a touch...

The middle of a field

The Irish poet-philosopher offered blessings of protection and awareness, beauty and friendship

some days, the pain is just background noise—dull, consistent, like a hum you forget is there until the room goes quiet.